Human Brochure - And so it begins…

Well as you know, I was selected by Canberra's Tourism Authority to take part in an unique social media experiment, the Human Brochure. The idea is that instead of spending money on traditional advertising and PR for the upcoming centenary of our nation's capital, they would invite 500 social media savvy humans to create a live, living and growing, online brochure.

So here's the first part of how it panned out. After a few worried days and sleepless nights, I started off on my great adventure on Friday morning.

I started with a local Bacchus Marsh bus from just near my house to get into the centre of Bacchus Marsh proper.



Several minutes later, I was standing outside the Blacksmith's Cottage and Forge (gratuitous plug) waiting for the shuttle bus from Ballarat .



This took me through Melton where ideally it would have picked up my friend Allan and his lovely wife Judy who had been selected to be on the Arts & Culture stream. Unfortunately Allan was not well and they couldn't make the trip. I hope they get to go on the February version.

And so, circuitously (I have no idea of the route we took), to Melbourne airport.



Note the louring sky. That was the last serious cloud I was to see for the weekend!

Since I was so early at the airport (the next shuttle bus would have got me there five minutes too late to check in), I was one of the first at the departure gate. It was fun to watch people turn up and try to guess if they were Humans or just ordinary, you know, humans.

As some of you may have noticed, I use a consistent avatar across all of my social media presence. The little blue fuzzy Cookie Monster doll was a gift from someone who thought the fact that I actually can cook a little bit was somehow relevant. The avatar shot was one of the first I took when I got my beautiful Tamron 60mm  f/2 macro lens. Later on, I animated it and made it wink. The avatar, not the lens!

Anyway, since I'm known around the webz as a googly-eyed, blue-fuzzed muppet, and am in fact an old, grey-haired, fat man, nobody in the departure lounge was going to recognise me. To overcome this, I pinned my little blue friend onto my jacket lapel!

Having made some new friends, it was time for a completely uneventful 40 minute flight to Canberra. On arrival we were met by some very friendly "Human wranglers" who checked us off and put us on coaches for the short trip to our hotels.

Even the coach seemed happy to see us!



After some free time to get settled in to my wonderful suite (yes, suite) at Mantra on Northbourne, we gathered in the lobby for the short trip to the Australian War Memorial where there was to be an official opening and reception.

Now I admit that I made a slight mistake here. I was expecting a few speeches, a 'Welcome to country', maybe an introduction to some of the leaders of this fascinating experiment, a glass of wine, maybe a sandwich. I didn't even bother to take a camera.

What an eye opener! We got all of the above and more. Oh, so much more. After the official welcome we were ushered into ANZAC Hall where the 250 Humans were almost outnumbered by War Memorial staff and volunteers, catering staff and traditional media people. Food and drink flowed freely. And such drink, such food! The smoked lamb cutlets were a particular favourite, I saw people chasing down the servers to get seconds (and more). It was like a Hobbit party. To add to that atmosphere, we were shown a wonderful presentation on a hugely wide screen about the origins of aerial warfare. This was made especially for the AWM by none other than Sir Peter Jackson, director of my all-time favourite movies, The Lord of the Rings.

After that we were free to wander around ANZAC Hall and view the other exhibits where there were volunteers in period uniforms to give fascinating presentations which further explained what was on show. There were stories and dress-ups for the children and time to meet even more Humans, more scrumptious food and even more drinks!

When it came time to leave, we were introduced to another thing that quickly became the norm for the weekend. Gifts. Everywhere we went, even though the various places had already gone way out of their way to showcase the very best that their facilities had to offer, they still wanted to give us gifts. Not hugely extravagant gifts, but meaningful gifts. As we left the AWM we were each handed a small pin representing a set of wings from the Australian Flying Corps and a pack of poppy seeds.

That would wrap up a pretty big first half day for most people, but when we were dropped off back at the Mantra, some of us decided that we were obliged, for the purposes of research, to check out the nightlife on offer in Canberra. I feel that this was particularly noble of us given that Saturday was a 6am call! More drinks, good music, some evil person bought a round of tequila shots. I got kissed by some of the girls. Well, more accurately, my little blue avatar doll got kissed*. Eventually we marched, upright and resolute, through streets that were somehow more winding than they had previously been, back to the hotel.

Thus endeth, finally, the first day of the Human Brochure. More to follow.

Good light,

Jim

*If you have photos of this, or any photos in which I appear, I'd love to see them. Please let me know in the comments where you've posted your photos or blogs.

Human Brochure Eve

It's almost as exciting as Christmas Eve! Tomorrow is the start of the Human Brochure social media 'experiment' by Canberra Tourism.

If you click on the logo above, you'll be able to follow any of the first batch of 250 humans as they tweet, blog, post, instagram, foursquare, and generally social media their way around the nation's capital.

My day will start at 8:58 as I catch the local bus just outside my house for the short trip into Bacchus Marsh proper. Then the Ballarat airport shuttle will pick me up at 9:20 and take me to Melbourne airport.

That will be followed by a lot of thumb-twiddling and coffee-drinking at the airport until I can check in at 11:30. The next airport shuttle would have got me to the airport 5 minutes too late to check in!

Scheduled departure time is 12:15 and we are due to arrive in Canberra at 13:20. After transferring to, and checking in at, the Mantra hotel we'll have some free time before the Opening Ceremony at the Australian War Memorial.

Then let the games begin!

Stay tuned (probably the best way to do that is to follow me on Twitter), this is gonna get big!

Good Light.

Human Brochure - Four more sleeps!

It's getting pretty exciting around the Human Brochure/500 Humans cohort now. Only four more sleeps, to use the kiddy countdown to Christmas terminology, before the first batch of us head to the nation's capital, Canberra.

To continue the kids at Christmas theme, I actually had trouble getting to sleep last night. It was partly excitement, but also partly anxiety and worry.

You see, I've lived in or visited all of the state capitals of Australia and I've lived for periods overseas (Hong Kong and San Angelo, Texas) and I've visited many other countries around the Asia-Pacific region. However, since I returned from the USA in 1996 after a two year stay, I haven't even left the state of Victoria.

This means that I haven't flown anywhere in the post-9/11 era, and I honestly have no idea what to expect.

I don't know how much, or what size, luggage is acceptable. How long prior to the flight to arrive at the airport? Heck, I don't even know how I'm going to get to the airport!

I don't know what isn't allowed to be taken into the aircraft cabin. I don't normally carry knitting needles or nail scissors on me, but I do always carry a pocket knife. I must leave that at home because I simply cannot have it taken away from me; it was my late father's. That whole "bottles of liquid" thing, is that just for international flights? That's not really a worry either. The only time I carry a bottle of liquid with me that I couldn't just dump is when I take a hip flask on a cold night's long-exposure starry sky shoot!

Anyway, I'm sure that the team behind the Human Brochure weekend (who seem like lovely people to judge from the tweets and FB posts that I've seen), will clear all this up for me, hopefully tomorrow when we receive our itineraries. Either that or you lovely readers will give me the lowdown in the comments.

You guys wouldn't lead a poor old blue muppet astray, would you?

Best spoof flying advice comment will win control of the internet for a whole day.

Looking forward to meeting some of you during the weekend.

Good Light,

Jim

Human Brochure - Some thoughts before the event.

Some time ago, alerted by an RT from somebody on Twitter, I threw my name into the hat for Australian Capital Tourism's "500 Humans" campaign. It must have been a big hat; apparently some 31,405 other people also tossed their name in as well!

The idea is that 500 "social media savvy" people will be chosen to travel to Canberra either on the weekends of 26-28 October or 15-17 February and will get to participate in a number of events which will showcase the best that Canberra can offer to tourists. The events, and the winners, will be split into 4 'streams'; Arts & Culture, Adventure, Family fun, and Food & Wine.

In return, the successful applicants are asked to publish content about their experience on social media; Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs etc.

On Monday evening I got an email to say that I had been accepted and would be in the adventure stream for the October weekend! "Whooo", as they say, "Hoooo!"

An interesting aside, if you like probability maths:- Of those 31,406 applications, 500 were selected, 250 for each weekend. Of the 249 other people selected for the October weekend, two of them I have actually met after following them on Twitter! What are the odds? No, really, what are the odds? I can't figure it out. Seems like a huge coincidence to me.

Anyway, it appears that I'll be traipsing off to Canberra, a city I haven't been to since the early 80s, in a couple of weeks. There I shall have adventures. A hot air balloon ride has been mentioned, as has mountain biking and a visit to the alpine wilderness.

I'll be taking lots of photographs and sharing them via Twitter and through this little blog.

So, who has suggestions as to what I should do in whatever downtime is left by all this adventuring?

Death!

No, come back! It's not going to be gruesome or morbid. It might be a bit sad, but I hope it'll be interesting.

The other day I took a little walk up to Maddingley General Cemetery, which is not too far from my place. I put the link to the map because Google will tell you that the cemetery is in the middle of town! That is a shop, an optician from memory, which is also the registered office of the cemetery's trustees.

Anyhoo. I put together some gear and went for a stroll on an usually sunny late May morning.

The gear that I took with me was:-

• Nikon D90 - gotta have a camera for this sort of thing!
• Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens - given the crop sensor on the D90, this is my 'nifty fifty'.
• Tamron 60mm f/2 lens - my macro lens (it's also a great portrait lens, I love this baby!)
• Nikon SB600 flash - in case I needed some fill light
• Orbis Ringflash adapter - great for macro work.

I didn't take a bag, just slung the Orbis on my shoulder, Tamron 60mm in one pocket of my shooting vest (yes, shooting vest. Don't judge me), flash in the other and off I went.

When I got there, it looked just like your average small country town's general cemetery, with different sections for Catholics and Protestants. I didn't see any sections for non-Christians though. I don't know if the cemetery is still in use. I didn't see any fresh plots, but the latest dates I noticed were only from last year so it probably is. There's certainly plenty of spare space.

I had a look around some of the more modern areas. There are some large mausoleum-type burials, mostly with Italian and some Greek names representing Bacchus Marsh's more recent history as a market gardening centre.

Most of the 'recent' burials looked to be well tended and most had full grave layouts and marble or granite headstones.

This one was a bit more on the 'budget' side.

I had actually thought that this was just a temporary placeholder while the monumental masons were making up the actual headstone, but the date of death is from 1986, so I guess not.

Another nearby grave was not quite so well tended.

Maybe the Connors were just a prickly bunch.

Then I made my way back to the older area where there are burials from the pioneer days. Now we're getting interesting!

Some of the burials were not tended at all and had no headstones or other markers.

Where there were markers, the thing that stands out is how many children died very young in the late 1800s. Life must have been tough for those early pioneering types.

Even if you made it through childhood, you weren't guaranteed a long life. Poor Nellie was only 18 but I imagine that in the late 1800s she'd have been "husband high" and living her own life. Sadly, her grave marker shows no indication of a husband, nor does is say who erected the stone for her. There is a large area of blank space as if there would be other burials in the same plot, but there the story ends.

Here's an interesting one. Alexander Murdoch, an immigrant from Scotland like me, seems to have been remembered quite recently. He has a very modern headstone compared to the others who died in the nineteenth century.

Another family who lost young children were the Andersons. This one, though, stood out for me because of Mr Anderson's unusual middle name. He would have been born around 1826; I wonder if he was born here.

Moving into the 20th century, we find the a grave marker, the side of which commemorates Charles Lyle who died 2½ years after he took part in the landing at Gallipoli. Did he make it home from the war or is this a memorial marker? I don't know, but I salute him.

As I headed out of the older section of the cemetery, I discovered that some people had apparently chosen to be interred in what looks like a wood-fired pizza oven! I have no idea of the significance of this monument. If you know, please tell me in the comments.

One last look back at the more modern area. I believe these are headstones marking cremations. I like the tension between the curve of the line of markers and the straight line of the boundary hedge.

An interesting postscript: As I was leaving, just outside the cemetery fence I found a little teddy bear lying in the grass. He was all mildewed and mouldy and covered in dirt, but he was wearing a white coat with some sort of health provider's logo. Perhaps he was a comfort bear given to a small child at a hospital or hospice. I wonder if the loss of the bear caused more tears than attending a funeral may have caused for this hypothetical child. We shall probably never know.

My friend Allan Saw (Flickr, Twitter) was moved by the fate of this poor teddy bear and used his wonderful photographic and post production skills to create this image of a Teddy Bear Wake.

(Note that this image is © Allan Saw and may not be used for any purpose without his permission)

I think that the concept of the wake, even the funeral, are important. Not for the dead, but for the living. It is necessary for the living to grieve, to celebrate the life of the dead person so that they can move on with their own lives.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on life, death and photography in the comments.

Good light.

Werribee Impressions

JC-110820-13, originally uploaded by justjimwilldo.

A late night, hand held, high ISO, 1 second exposure that came out of the camera just like this (well, except for the copyright).

This is my current favourite image of mine. You may see it around in a few different places!

Cricket photography.

Nothing to do with the insects...

...although this is actually a cicada, not a cricket!

I love the game of cricket. I'll watch any game in any format I can find. On TV or live at the ground.

I particularly love test cricket. This is the form of the game where a match can, and ideally should, last for five days, and even after that time it is possible to not get a result. Although it is increasingly infrequent, test match cricket can end in a draw. Note that a draw is not the same as a tie. There have only been two tied test matches, one in Brisbane in 1960 and one in Chennai in 1986. This is a very rare result; the two thousandth test match will commence at Lord's tomorrow (July 21, 2011).

Over the past four years I have been a non-playing* member at the Darley cricket club in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria and I'm just about to start my second season as a committee member.

For the first two seasons I was the official scorer for the First XI side but for the last two seasons I have been attending matches as a photographer. Hence, finally, the reason for this blog post!

Now cricket is played on a large, oval shaped ground and most of the action takes place near the centre of that ground. What we need here is some long glass. I use the Tamron SP AF 200-500mm f/5.3-6.3 usually in the range of 300-400mm. Note that I use a Nikon D90 so the smaller sensor gives some extra telephoto advantage, but that's a story for another post.

You will see that, given the range of aperture of this lens, I am going to struggle to suck in light in low light situations, and to get a nice shallow depth of field to isolate the action from the background. Fortunately cricket is a bit of a fair weather game and is usually played in good light conditions. It does pay to keep shooting when the play stops though.


For the second problem, one of our grounds is on the side of a hill. No, the ground is level, but shooting from one side means that there is nothing on the other side for miles.


So what do you shoot? I have tended to shoot everything. Three to five shots at 4.5fps of almost every delivery, the same or more of catches and run outs, a couple of shots of fielding to make sure I get at least something of every team member.

This is too much! It is a huge amount of wear and tear on my shutter and makes the job of culling prior to editing simply unbearable! I must learn to ease back a little.

I also tend to watch most of the game through the lens. Some people say that cricket is a slow game, but when the action happens, it happens quickly.

And there is plenty to shoot. There is the batting. Sometimes the batsman gets the better of the bowler and scores runs.


Sometimes the bowler wins that contest.


There are catches.


Appeals (I love the triple symmetry in this one).


And the one the bowlers all love to see, wickets with the bails flying in the air.


Don't forget the crowd, they like to get involved as well.

(Edit: Ok, maybe "crowd" is a slight exaggeration.)

And then there are the "What the ...?" moments. A batsman and the fielders should always keep their eye on the ball. Sometimes you get distracted by a flying, broken bat though! Psst! The ball's on this side, guys.


For those that love both cricket and photography, it is a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. Of course there are the after-match beers, which always taste better when washing down a victory.


So, do you shoot cricket? What about other sports? Leave a comment with a link to your favourite sports shot.

Special thanks to my Twitter friend Sarah for encouraging me and keeping me supplied with cricketing photos during the Australian off-season. Sarah is the official photographer for Kent County Cricket Club. Check out her work here, or follow her on Twitter.

*For all my love of watching cricket, I have never played the game apart from school-yard lunchtime knocks.

Good Light.